Returners Jaleel Johnson, Malik Charles Want to ‘Turn This Ship Around’ in Stillwater

STILLWATER — Jaleel Johnson said he had some nerves going into his first talk with Oklahoma State’s new football coach.

Johnson had been banged up in his redshirt junior season last year, playing in just four games while the wheels quickly fell off the Cowboys’ season. OSU finished the year 1-11 with longtime coach Mike Gundy being let go after the Pokes’ third game.

It’s somewhat rare nowadays that a player is in one spot for too long, but the 2025 season was Johnson’s fourth in Stillwater. The stable program that surrounded Johnson went through its first big change in more than two decades, leaving his future uncertain with Johnson going as far to say he did think about leaving.

“Obviously, I’m not around (Morris),” Johnson said. “He wasn’t around me. We didn’t know each other. I didn’t know what he was gonna think about me or how he felt about me. There was a chance he didn’t want me to be here. There was those nerves. But when I got on the phone with him, we had a conversation that was good, so it made me feel good.”

Johnson said he left that conversation feeling wanted and spoke glowingly about his new coaches on Thursday.

Johnson joked that with so many new players and coaches around him that it sort of feels like he was the one who transferred. But with all the new that’s in Stillwater, there is also some old.

Greg Richmond has returned to coach the Cowboys’ defensive line. Richmond recruited Johnson to Stillwater and coached Johnson during his redshirt year before going on to coach at Sam Houston and then North Texas under new OSU defensive coordinator Skyler Cassity.

“It’s just like old times, man,” Johnson said. “He hasn’t changed a bit, man. It’s great. He’s a funny guy. He likes to joke around with us, and he treats us as if we’re his own kids. It’s good.”

Malik Charles is in a similar boat to Johnson in that he’s a returning defensive lineman, but the 2025 season was Charles’ first in Stillwater.

Charles had already gone through the rigors of transferring, spending time at Western New Mexico, Northern Arizona and West Georgia before joining the Pokes.

But Charles said even after the Tulsa game when Gundy got let go, he knew he wasn’t going to go anywhere.

“I’m gonna be real, I knew that I was gonna stay regardless,” Charles said. “When I initially transferred from West Georgia, me and my family talked about it, wherever I chose is where I was gonna be for the next two years. Coaching changes happen. It’s gonna happen in the league. So, you’ve just got to be able to adapt to adversity. I knew it was gonna be set in stone and I was gonna stay regardless.

“I wanted to be at a place where I could solidify myself. I’d been around to three different colleges at this point, like, when I was coming to transfer, I’d been to like three different colleges at that point. And I wanted to be somewhere where I could make a name for myself and stay for my last two seasons.”

With that being said, Charles said he was “extremely nervous” while he was sitting on the couch waiting to talk with Morris for the first time, worried Morris might not want him to stay. But Morris quickly soothed those nerves by letting Charles know that he did want to keep him in Stillwater.

So now Johnson and Charles are focused on turning around a program that they’ve watched struggle of late.

“Loyal and True to the end,” Johnson said. “I love it here, and like I said, man, just the past two years, I used to watch Oklahoma State games growing up — this was never how it was here. It’s just unfortunate that it’s been like this, but I want to be part of the reason why we turn this ship around.”